Odds are that you know Mother Teresa was Catholic, but what religion is the Dalai Lama?

How about Maimonides?

And - no Googling - what's the first book of the Bible? How about the first four books of the New Testament?

Americans who can answer all of those questions are relatively rare, a huge new study has found.

In fact, although the United States is one of the most religious developed countries in the world, most Americans scored 50 percent or less on a quiz measuring knowledge of the Bible, world religions and what the Constitution says about religion in public life.

The survey is full of surprising findings.

For example, it's not evangelicals or Catholics who did best - it's atheists and agnostics.

It's not Bible-belt Southerners who scored highest - they came at the bottom.

Those who believe the Bible is the literal word of God did slightly worse than average, while those who say it is not the word of God scored slightly better.

Barely half of all Catholics know that when they take communion, the bread and wine literally become the body and blood of Christ, according to Catholic doctrine.

And only about one in three know that a public school teacher is allowed to teach a comparative religion class - although nine out of 10 know that teacher isn't allowed by the Supreme Court to lead a class in prayer.

The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life is behind the 32-question quiz, polling more than 3,400 Americans by telephone to gauge the depth of the country's religious knowledge.

"When it comes to religion, there are a lot of things that Americans are unfamiliar with. That's the main takeaway," says Greg Smith, a senior researcher at the think tank and one of the main authors of the survey.

Smith has a theory about why atheists did so well on the quiz - they have thought more about religion than most people.

"Very few people say that they were raised as atheists and agnostics," he explains.

About three out of four were raised as Christians, he says.

"They were raised in a faith and have made a decision to identify themselves with groups that tend to be fairly unpopular," atheists and agnostics, he says.

"That decision presupposes having given some thought to these things," which is strongly linked with religious knowledge, he says.

The single strongest factor predicting how well a person does on the religious knowledge quiz is education - the more years of schooling a person has, the more they are likely to know about religion, regardless of how religious they consider themselves to be, Pew found.

The think tank also asked a handful of general knowledge questions - such as who wrote "Moby-Dick" and who's the vice president of the United States - and found a link between religious knowledge and general knowledge.

Very few people scored high on religion questions and badly on general knowledge, or vice versa.

People who were members of religious youth groups also did well, he said.

"Religious education is an important factor that helps to explain knowledge - people who participated in youth groups get an average of two extra questions right," he said.

Jews and Mormons were close behind atheists and agnostics as the group who did best overall on the religion questions, and white evangelical Protestants also tended to get more than half right.

White Catholics averaged exactly half right, followed by mainline Protestants and people who said they were "nothing in particular," both of whom got just under half right.

Black Protestants got just over a third of the questions right, and Hispanic Catholics just under a third, the Pew Forum found.

The survey was inspired partly by CNN Belief Blog contributor Stephen Prothero's 2007 book, "Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know - And Doesn't."

Because the Pew Forum couldn't find any indication that such a survey has ever been done before, it can't say if Americans today know more or less about religion now than they did in the past.

And the organization doesn't claim too much for its 32 questions.

They "are intended to be representative of a body of important knowledge about religion; they are not meant to be a list of the most essential facts," the Pew Forum says.

Only eight of the 3,412 survey respondents got all 32 questions right. Six got them all wrong.

soundoff(1,855 Responses)

Why not have a quiz on American government and history? Religion isn't taught in public schools and to that point, neither are math and science.

September 29, 2010 at 8:27 am |

ICEMAN

i got 9/10 yall should know the one i missed lol

September 29, 2010 at 8:09 am |

ptfluffy

10 for 10 was easy. I'm not so sure that it does not have anything to do with religion but any subject. Watch the man on the street interviews and you will see how uninformed the people of America are about a whole host of subjects. We are very wide but very shallow.

September 29, 2010 at 7:39 am |

Lee

Americans are not stupid or dumb, but many qualify as ignorant. This is a condition that can be overcome with education. The current problem in America is simplemindedness as fewer Americans value history and knowledge than did in years past. One must admit, there has been a dumbing down going on in this country for two decades or more and there seems to be nothing going on to prevent its continuance.

I would recommend American's leadership acknowledge the problem stated above. The first step to fixing a problem is admitting the problem exist. But of course one must be mindful of the fact that America's leadership is ethically challenge and that is a condition that cannot be fix with education.

September 29, 2010 at 6:03 am |

Justin

Not really a surprise considering most people blindly follow their religions.

September 29, 2010 at 3:57 am |

cakes

The answer to the question about the majority religion in Indonesia is not "Muslim." Muslim is not a religion...Muslims are people who follow the religion of Islam...Islam is a religion and the majority religion of Indonesia...Did someone proofread the questions?

September 29, 2010 at 1:22 am |

Reality4U

If more people would actually sit down and read the Bible there would be a lot more atheists. Who in their right mind would follow a god with these morals. These so called christians have never even read the thing! The reason atheists know more about the bible than christians is that they have taken the time to learn about it and make a rational decision to not believe it. Here's what the all loving god has to say...

Death to Followers of Other Religions
Whoever sacrifices to any god, except the Lord alone, shall be doomed. (Exodus 22:19 NAB)

Kill Followers of Other Religions.
1) If your own full brother, or your son or daughter, or your beloved wife, or you intimate friend, entices you secretly to serve other gods, whom you and your fathers have not known, gods of any other nations, near at hand or far away, from one end of the earth to the other: do not yield to him or listen to him, nor look with pity upon him, to spare or shield him, but kill him. Your hand shall be the first raised to slay him; the rest of the people shall join in with you. You shall stone him to death, because he sought to lead you astray from the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery. And all Israel, hearing of this, shall fear and never do such evil as this in your midst. (Deuteronomy 13:7-12 NAB)

Kill Women Who Are Not Virgins On Their Wedding Night
But if this charge is true (that she wasn't a virgin on her wedding night), and evidence of the girls virginity is not found, they shall bring the girl to the entrance of her fathers house and there her townsman shall stone her to death, because she committed a crime against Israel by her unchasteness in her father's house. Thus shall you purge the evil from your midst. (Deuteronomy 22:20-21 NAB)

Christians, in the name of god throughout their history of war, witch-hunts and crusades are up to 100's of millions (see references below). Muslims don't fare much better in terms of human suffering and murder... they are just a few million less, but they started 600 years later, maybe they'll catch up soon. There will never be peace in the world until religion is eradicated. When was the last time an atheist bombed a planned parenthood, burned a witch or flew a plane into a building? IMAGINE NO RELIGION.

September 29, 2010 at 12:41 am |

Reality4U

If more people would actually sit down and read the Bible there would be a lot more atheists. Who in their right mind would follow a god with these morals. These so called christians have never even read the thing! The reason atheists know more about the bible than christians is that they have taken the time to learn about it and make a rational decision to not believe it. Here's what the all loving god has to say...

Death to Followers of Other Religions
Whoever sacrifices to any god, except the Lord alone, shall be doomed. (Exodus 22:19 NAB)

Kill Nonbelievers
They entered into a covenant to seek the Lord, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and soul; and everyone who would not seek the Lord, the God of Israel, was to be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman. (2 Chronicles 15:12-13 NAB)

Kill Followers of Other Religions.
1) If your own full brother, or your son or daughter, or your beloved wife, or you intimate friend, entices you secretly to serve other gods, whom you and your fathers have not known, gods of any other nations, near at hand or far away, from one end of the earth to the other: do not yield to him or listen to him, nor look with pity upon him, to spare or shield him, but kill him. Your hand shall be the first raised to slay him; the rest of the people shall join in with you. You shall stone him to death, because he sought to lead you astray from the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery. And all Israel, hearing of this, shall fear and never do such evil as this in your midst. (Deuteronomy 13:7-12 NAB)

Kill Women Who Are Not Virgins On Their Wedding Night
But if this charge is true (that she wasn't a virgin on her wedding night), and evidence of the girls virginity is not found, they shall bring the girl to the entrance of her fathers house and there her townsman shall stone her to death, because she committed a crime against Israel by her unchasteness in her father's house. Thus shall you purge the evil from your midst. (Deuteronomy 22:20-21 NAB)

Christians, in the name of god throughout their history of war, witch-hunts and crusades are up to 100's of millions (see references below). Muslims don't fare much better in terms of human suffering and murder... they are just a few million less, but they started 600 years later, maybe they'll catch up soon. There will never be peace in the world until religion is eradicated. When was the last time an atheist bombed a planned parenthood, burned a witch or flew a plane into a building? IMAGINE NO RELIGION.

September 29, 2010 at 12:19 am |

Will Smith

I have a massive e-pen1s because I write a ton of irrelevant things on a stupid CNN article.

September 29, 2010 at 12:09 am |

Peter Lockhart

To be a religious believer, is to just blindly accept all the fairytales and myths that are religions. That indicates low intelligence. To be an atheist, is to question, doubt and reject all the fairytales and myths that are religion. That indicates higher intelligence. The fact is that the USA is the laughing stock of the rest of the world for having the fattest and least educated people on earth. This is just one of many classic examples.

September 29, 2010 at 12:05 am |

edward

this was not a hard poll. I am sure the media people enjoy playing up the point the most people did not get things correct.

September 29, 2010 at 12:01 am |

Ron Wilkinson

I'm an Atheist (Zen Buddhist), I scored 10 and I'm a blue collar worker with some college.
I agree that religion ought to be taught in schools from an historical and factual standpoint and not favor any religious point of view. But the history of religion is important and knowledge of it is necessary especially at this time.

September 28, 2010 at 11:59 pm |

Ron Wilkinson

I'm a Buddhist Atheist and I scored 10. I wonder why? I'm a blue collar worker with some college.

It's the historical data thats confusing everyone. Everyone says they are right and the way you can tell which religions are the best or is closet to the truth is to look at the people in the religion. The ones that are focused on the universal laws of the body which are exercising, eating properly, mediation are the ones that the closet to the truth. How can you preach loving this god in the sky when you are not honoring the one within called the soul?

September 28, 2010 at 11:50 pm |

jayman419

The problem isn't that so few Americans know chapter and verse from these texts. Go into a religious education center and ask random people whether an electron is positively or negatively charged. Ask what the new classification of Pluto is, and how many other objects in our solar system belong to it. Ask for ten examples of "missing links" which have been found since Darwin's day, or to name the 4 most specific ranks of scientific taxonomy in general.

(drawls) Welp there's your problem, right there.

September 28, 2010 at 11:23 pm |

Cale

The takeaway as always is that most Americans are ignorant.

September 28, 2010 at 11:23 pm |

Sarah Ray

I received the score of "10". I'm a Christian, and I teach the gospel to three year olds ("Sunday School") at my Vineyard church. I don't feel this test indicates anything though. I've studied all of these religions, and most questions didn't pertain to my own non-denominational faith. I saw Mormon, Catholic, Muslim.. Hardly any actual Biblical questions though; Aside from the ten orders of the Lord and the birthplace of Christ Jesus.. I also am saddened by the amount of bashing that I have seen on this forum, as the result of this article.. If you are content in your own beliefs, why talk down at or about others?

September 28, 2010 at 10:31 pm |

Jaytee

The reason why Religion does not make sense for practical life use is that it is requires faith and "faith" is the belief in the unknown. Beside religion what part of our life do we run our life on with faith? That’s because you can't just have faith that our kids will do the right thing. We have to teach our kids through life experiences what it takes to become a productive part of our society. We can't just have faith our finances will be in order, or if ill we will get better. We have to know these things today, tomorrow in our life time and we take action to correct or manage what life deals us. For the most part religion allows one to have faith all life without any proof of its necessity. Then we die, and well there is no way to assess if ones belief in faith had any real meaning. Besides the fact that chronologically religion has man's existence here on earth ALL wrong, there can be no doubt we have experienced evolutionary change in the very short time that religion has been in existence. Man has evolved from being closely connected to our environment, i.e. understanding the lunar and solar cycle, and creating a living off of what this earth offers to us to creating a living off the earth by damaging our environment and less and less of us knowing anything about the celestial bodies that surround us. The fact is we have evolved because Man had to in order separate Man once civilizations grew. Without religions’ help i know one should not kill, or steal, and YES we should obey our parents. Most of the other 10 commandments cover Gods ego. Really if you look at the history or religion it teaches and promotes separation and difference rather than being one man under God.

September 28, 2010 at 10:26 pm |

Tell_Me

I took the longer version and got 32/32 (ok, lucky guess on the old Puritan guy) - atheist/agnostic here.

Not sure how I would have done on the telephone quiz - here, I could focus and think a bit clearer on each question than if I had been responding to a waiting person, especially with all the concentration-diverting cell-phone questions (huh?) and the political ones.

The CNN Belief Blog covers the faith angles of the day's biggest stories, from breaking news to politics to entertainment, fostering a global conversation about the role of religion and belief in readers' lives. It's edited by CNN's Daniel Burke with contributions from Eric Marrapodi and CNN's worldwide news gathering team.